So the beekeeping season has begun. Our colonies have been managed at the start of this year to produce new queens to give to new beekeepers. We take off the newly formed queen cells and place them in Nucleus hives (a smaller box containing 5 or six frames of drawn wax comb) so the new queen can emerge, get mated, then hopefully go on to head a healthy brand new full size colony.

The old queen is shook swarmed into a new brood box where she can continue laying and raising new bees with some of her previous workers and drones. This allows the bees to continue to bring in lots of nectar and pollen for the success of the colony whilst negating the urge to swarm, leading to happier and stronger bees.

A newly made nucleus hive